Jules Verne, 1828-1905, was a French novelist, poet and playwright. He wrote many books with scientific ideas and innovations which were way ahead of his time. In some cases he was even able to predict the future. Here are a few examples. In "From Earth to the Moon", Jules Verne describes a space gun (a really big canon), that with enough speed could launch men to the moon, which is a similar to the Saturn V rocket used by NASA to get man to the moon. "Five Weeks in a Balloon" tells the story of a 4,000 miles balloon trip over the continent of Africa. A trip of this sort would not have been possible until at least a century later. "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" introduces the "Nautilus", which is a technologically advanced submarine, one of which would not have existed at the time. In "In the Year 2889", Jules Verne describes the "phonotelephote" which allowed "the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires". This is similar to the videoconferencing setup used to connect family in North and South Korea in 2005, or even today's FaceTime or video call on Skype and WhatsApp.